The Last Laugh
by Frank Hunter
Summary: Is Harley Quinn finally turning over a new leaf? Tim Drake thinks so. Bruce isn't convinced. He asks the boy to keep an eye on Quinn, but he also needs Robin's help with something bigger. Someone with real skill is trying to steal information from Wayne Enterprises, information that could be dangerous in the wrong hands. The theft must be stopped, along with whoever is behind it!
1. Parole

**The Last Laugh  
Chapter 1: Parole  
**By, Frank Hunter

The parole board sat assembled in the usual cold, dank room in the west wing of Arkham Asylum. Theirs was a tried and true routine. So many times they would come together and sit where they sat now, side by side, down the length of this steel table that divided the room almost clear in half. They, the arbitrators, had one side, wielding the power of fate in their very hands. On the other side typically sat something very different: the smoldering husk of a human being. An inmate.

Those people, if you can even use that word, the ones who sat on the other side, were always so incredibly sad. Remorseless, pitiful creatures that make up the population of Arkham, pulled here at the required times to discuss the possibility of ever leaving this place and starting something that could amount to a normal life. For most of them, this was not an option.

This was a room of so much wasted time.

But now, the person sitting on the other side of the table had a different story entirely; she was something the assembled board was not accustomed to. This person was a woman, a young woman with matted strands of twisted blonde hair that drooped down over her forehead. Her eyes stayed on the floor. She refused to look at anyone else in the room throughout the duration of her hearing. But her aversion was not out of anything that resembled stubbornness or pride. If anything, she was legitimately ashamed. At least, she seemed to be.

If the parole board members were exceptional at anything, it was detecting insincerity in an inmate during a hearing. Most inmates came into this room with one of two possible mentalities. First, some were hostile. They entered with the prior understanding that they were not going to be granted parole one way or the other, and chose instead to try intimidation or repulsion techniques just to get a rise out of the board members.

Alternatively, they could be repentant. Penance came in numerous forms, but it was usually either too over-the-top to be believable (the recent bid by Edward Nigma had been just that), or so incredibly somber that it must have been rehearsed. In short, it never looked quite so legitimate. Not quite like this.

The woman sat in the room and appeared as though she honestly could not care about anyone's opinion. She looked broken and miserable, and in such a state, strikingly and uncharacteristically _sane_.

"Ladies and gentlemen," spoke one of the members at the table, a psychiatrist by the name of Dr. Sarah Connell. Her English was accented, influenced by a childhood spent on the moors of Scotland.

"We are all familiar with the crimes attributed to my patient. Dr. Harleen Quinzel, alias 'Harley Quinn.' Indeed, the whole of Gotham is familiar with her crimes. Dr. Quinzel does not deny having committed those crimes. But, it is a fact that they were committed while she was not in her right mind. While she was under the influence of a psychotic. Dr. Quinzel has, in many ways, been the greatest victim of this madman, known only as 'the Joker,' and has in no way been hurt more severely than during his most recent run of atrocities two years ago. Thankfully, they were both once again brought to us, for treatment."

Dr. Connell flipped through several papers bearing very official-looking type and big letters stamped in red ink at the top.

"Even given my time as a resident psychiatric professional here in this asylum, I cannot honestly claim to have come any closer in these last two years to understanding the motivations of this man, or any possible methods with which he may be successfully treated for his psychosis. His actions remain a horrific riddle to which we still have not found the answer. However, _Dr. Quinzel's_ illness is strikingly clear. Through her multiple dependency issues and a pervasive abandonment complex, the Joker was able to influence and poison her. She had been deceived and, in the culmination of a lifetime of abuse and neglect, was psychologically compulsed to become a part of his machinations. Given the…_violent_ and _disturbing_ nature of his most recent string of offenses, particularly those committed directly toward Dr. Quinzel, I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that my patient has, at long last, broken the delusion of the connection she had felt toward this man. Through her therapy, she has come to acknowledge the abuse she has suffered at his hands, and has made a conscious decision to sever that connection. This has been a painful and difficult process for her, but one that has lent itself to strengthen her overall moral resolve and state of mental health."

The psychiatrist cleared her throat as she gave the declaration that would carry the most weight in this room.

"Considering my client's rational decision to move forward and ongoing state of mental recovery, I would strongly recommend that she be considered for early release, conditionary upon regular meetings with a parole officer, and continued therapeutic sessions with me."

The table rumbled into a slew of chatter and quiet murmuring. There was dissent, of course, but this testimony had only been the climax of nearly an hour of psychological insight, diagnoses, and opinions which had led to it. Everyone had been prepared to hear this, though the patient herself didn't so much as move. She still hadn't looked up. She, in fact, hadn't said _anything_ through the entire discourse.

The man in the seat farthest to her right shifted uncomfortably in his chair. That seat was typically reserved for the board's only layman member. The brass name badge on the table read "Bruce Wayne," a name while not relevant in the field of psychoanalysis, was one everybody knew anyway.

No one on the Arkham board really understood why Mr. Wayne, one of the richest and most powerful socialites in the world, took an interest in the day-to-day activities in the asylum, but his company poured enormous sums of money into the institution to ensure that its facilities be kept clean and up-to-date, that the staff remain trained and capable, and that Arkham as a whole be maintained in pristine condition. But that kind of generosity did entitle him to a seat at this table, and Mr. Wayne rarely missed a parole meeting.

On this day, though, it was not Mr. Wayne sitting behind the name badge, but another man, a young man not yet out of his teens who, with express written permission, had come in the billionaire's stead. This young man wore combed, black hair and a gray suit worth more than he had any right to be able to afford. He had introduced himself to the board members as Tim Drake, Mr. Wayne's employee and personal assistant, and was to act as his surrogate at this hearing.

Tim had arrived with his arms crossed and his resolve solid, but his opinion had swayed over the course of the hearing into uncertainty. He sat now, spinning a black ballpoint pen across and over his fingers in a simple little twirling trick, mind adrift in contemplation. He had, or course, met Dr. Quinzel numerous times, often under stressful conditions. He had seen how she behaved when left to her own devices in the real world. The rest of the board, of course, had no idea who the man sitting to their right truly was, nor the secret life of their usual benefactor, Mr. Wayne. They did not know that Tim had time and again encountered Dr. Quinzel, dressed and made-up as her alter-ego Harley Quinn, in his own disguise as Robin. They did not know that he and Bruce, his mentor, the legendary Batman, had been the ones to bring her here in the first place. Had they known, they might not have been so open about the possibility of letting her out.

But that was the point of it all, and Tim was grateful to have been able to hear unbiased testimony. He had to admit to himself that this time something felt different. In all the fights he'd had with Harley Quinn, he had come to expect a lot from her. He expected moral ambiguity, a sick desperation and desire to please, and a mouth that would never just shut itself. They were getting none of that now. The silent, beaten figure before him wasn't the Harley Quinn he knew. He looked at her and he saw a woman that may actually be seeking redemption. Maybe Bruce wouldn't have been so compassionate. Hell, there was no maybe about it. But if he hadn't trusted Tim's opinion on the matter, he shouldn't have trusted him to come in the first place.

Before Tim could make a decision for sure though, there was one thing he needed.

"Excuse me," he called over the chatter of the doctors and sociologists, all the people who probably believed they had infinitely more right to talk than him. "Yeah, hey?"

He got their attention as they turned to him one by one. Once the room had gradually fallen into silence, he gestured toward Quinn with his pen.

"I think if Mr. Wayne were here, he'd insist on hearing what the patient has to say for herself. Would that be possible?"

The man at the centermost seat, a retired doctor and squirrelly little man in a tweed jacket and thin-rimmed glasses named Elliot Newman, coughed and nodded. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I feel that would be appropriate." He turned to her, as did the rest of the board, who now sat quietly, waiting.

"Dr. Quinzel?" Dr. Newman prompted. "Do you have anything you want to add to these proceedings?"

For a moment, Tim wasn't sure she would say anything. She may as well have been a paraplegic the way she'd been sitting, though Tim knew he hadn't thrashed her quite _that_ hard two years back. After a long silence though, a sniffle escaped, and then a string of words.

"Whadda'ya want?" she asked mopily. Her voice was, as always, piercing and nasal, ringing with hints of an east-coast upbringing and a childhood of slumming. "You wanna hear how sorry I am for what I did? You wanna hear that I'll never do anything bad ever, ever again?"

"We'd like to hear your own opinion on what your doctors have been saying about you," Dr. Newman said.

"My doctors?" she scoffed.

She didn't seem to have anything else, so Dr. Newman poked again. "About your association with the criminal, Joker?"

"I don't wanna talk about him," Quinn said, mumbling slightly.

"Beg pardon?" asked Dr. Newman.

"Mr. J…" she sighed. "The _Joker_, let me believe that he loved me. I guess he never said so himself, but he knew. He knew how I felt, and he just treated me like a used tampon. I was good to help him out every so often, but I get a little bloody, and he'd just throw me away."

A few of the board members cringed at the analogy and Quinn paused slightly while the streams of tears ran down her cheeks, but she wasn't done. "The more I believed him though, the more I was willing to do to keep him happy. I'm just that kinda gal, I guess." A little chortle escaped from her. "I don't wanna talk about what he did to me last time. It's too much. But no, Doc, I don't want anything to do with him ever again. I wish you could keep him locked in a hole for the rest of his life. I wish even more that the Bat had splattered his brains across the side of a building."

Her hand clenched into a fist as she said all of this. She finally raised her eyes up to the board members, and Tim felt his stomach flutter. He hadn't thought about it before, but now he realized that even though he'd squared off with Harley dozens of times, he'd never before seen her without the extensive makeup, whiteface, and mask that had been her trademark. He'd never really seen the raw _human_ underneath. He saw it now, and it was stirring. Her eyes were blue. He never knew.

"I gotta move past him. Even more, I gotta _forget_ him, and forget everything I've done…everything I've _been_ since I got caught up with him. And I'm tryin' to do that, Doc, but it's hard.

Dr. Newman cleared his throat. "How can this board believe in the sincerity of your statement _this _time, Dr. Quinzel? You've reverted to a life of crime before."

"I don't give a flippin' flop what you believe," Harley said. A hint of her old irreverence was floating to the surface. "Believe whatever you want. I'm not healin' for you. I'm healin' for me. And to tell'ya the truth, I don't really mind where I do it. Arkham would be fine. It's just…"

She paused for a moment, seeming to collect her thoughts. The board waited patiently. Tim could see her, fighting for the words she needed. Articulation was something else he'd never particularly expected from Harley Quinn.

"It's just…this is_ his_ place. He's still here, ya'know? And I don't just mean it literally, though I can hear him laughing that laugh down the halls. His laugh…" she grimaced, remembering what Tim expected was the high pitched cackle of the Joker, a sound that, once you heard, couldn't be unheard. He had to fight a grimace at it himself. It had accompanied so many horrors in his past that it bothered him too.

"Even when he's not nearby," Quinn went on, "he's in the _walls_, and the _rooms_ of this place. I _met_ him here, fell in _love_ with him here. He's the nut, and this is the nuthouse. It's his place. And it'd be easier to forget him if I wasn't around him everywhere I went. That's the only reason I'd ask to leave now. It'd be _easier_ anywhere else." She set her jaw and glared at them. "But I'll do my best at it one way or another. You'll see."

After this declaration she fell silent and didn't speak again for the duration of the meeting. Some debate and discussion kicked up once again among the board members, but none of it held any new revelation. It was mostly just rehash of the tired, old details they'd already covered twice over. Tim was intrigued by the situation at hand, though. Was she actively trying to give up on the Joker? More importantly, would she be able to _do_ it if she could just get away from him? Harley's recovery would be a milestone, a seldom-achieved victory in the war that he and the Batman waged on the criminal element of this city. So few of them actually _sought_ to reform. Less of them succeeded. But if there was a _chance_ with this one, would it be worth taking?

It wasn't long before the board came to a vote, one that split the group nearly in half. Tim cast his vote, Bruce's vote, where his heart knew it was right. Before long, the whole ordeal was over.

Harley Quinn would be released on parole in two weeks time.


	2. Trouble at Wayne Enterprises

**The Last Laugh  
Chapter 2: Trouble at Wayne Enterprises  
**By, Frank Hunter

When Tim returned to Wayne Manor later that afternoon, Alfred was there waiting for him. The old butler greeted him at the door, pulling it open and letting him into the enormous house that may as well have been his home since he was just a boy.

"Good afternoon, Master Drake," Alfred said as Tim trotted in past him.

"Heya, Alfred," Tim answered. He stepped in through the foyer and, wasting no time, through to the lounge in the organ hall. The hall was decorated, as was the rest of Wayne Manor, with the most elegant adornments and hangings imaginable. The grand piano for which the room got its name was more expensive than most people's homes.

Tim heard the heavy front door shut behind him and Alfred's carefully placed, regular steps follow him back into the organ hall. He pulled his arms from his jacket one at a time, and laid the jacket over the bench behind the piano. "Everything go alright today?" he asked the butler.

"I'd suggest you confer with Master Wayne for details," Alfred answered. He walked right up to Tim, picked up his discarded jacket, and draped it over one arm. "I believe there were some unexpectedcomplications."

"Aren't there always?" Tim answered. "Where's Bruce?"

"Downstairs, as per usual," Alfred said, nodding his head toward the bookcase in the corner of the room.

"Figured as much," Tim smirked. He leaned over the piano and struck three specific discords in succession. When the third was played, a loud click emanated from behind the bookcase where, Tim knew, a latch had been released. He would be able to swing the bookcase back on its hinges now, revealing the stairwell behind that would lead him on. Downstairs.

"You ever tell him that the sun won't kill him?" Tim asked. He walked over to the stairwell.

"Tirelessly, young sir. Perhaps you'll have better luck."

"Right," Tim laughed. He pushed open the bookcase, stepped onto the first step, and closed the door behind him. The latch caught once the door was closed, sealing Tim inside.

Tim descended the stairwell, the warm light of the manor giving way into the cold, sterile white of fluorescent bulbs that lit the way down here. Everything aboveground was for show. For fashion. This? Function, and nothing but.

The stairs let out into an enormous, stone cavern that spanned almost the full breadth of the expansive mansion, and as Tim stepped into it he was hit by the familiar wave of warm, humid air. It felt like a swamp and smelled like the swarms of bats that made their home in the dips and cubbyholes of the ceiling. The musky smell always reminded Tim of damp, stale corn chips, not disgusting but very pungent and invasive.

Of course, he would never suggest that they _get rid_ of the bats. That would be utter insanity. Alfred might kill him for it.

Spread across the human levels of the underground cave were countless oddities, trophies, accessories and facilities that came into play throughout Bruce and Tim's secret life. At that moment, Tim could see Bruce making use of the cave's expansive computer terminal, set down another flight of stairs and directly across from this entrance. He was still wearing the business suit Tim had seen him in that morning.

Tim approached his mentor and came up behind him, checking out what Bruce was looking at on the screen. There were a number of documents and photographs of different people and events. Almost everything had one logo present on it: a circle with a design inside it that was supposed to resemble an open, helping hand. Tim recognized it as the logo of Life 2.0, the company that had held most of Bruce's public attention for the past several months.

"The merger went well?" Tim asked.

"It wasn't a merger," Bruce answered. "It was an acquisition."

"Alright," Tim responded, not really caring about the distinction. "That went well?"

Bruce's fingers were busily typing some sort of information into the computer. "Yes. All the transitional paperwork is done. The press conference was a success, and the employees of Life 2.0 are getting settled into their new offices at Wayne Enterprises."

"Then why do you still look stressed out?" Tim asked.

Bruce grunted. "Because somebody decided to perform a cyber-attack on our company servers while Wayne Enterprises was preoccupied with the transition."

Tim raised an eyebrow. "Your company got hacked?"

"Not quite," Bruce said. "They tried. They didn't get in."

"Lucius's security systems are pretty top notch, huh?"

"They are," Bruce agreed. "But it's disturbing that someone would try."

"Any idea what they were after?"

"No, they didn't get far enough. But I've told Lucius to keep his eyes open. Any further activity, he'll let me know."

Tim nodded. "What is it Life 2.0 does again?"

Bruce's tone lowered and shifted into mono, the obvious indication that he had discussed this a hundred times already and his patience was being tried. Tim did his best to ignore it.

"The company is involved in several advancements in biotechnology and nano-robotics. They've come a long way toward developing inexpensive and effective methods of organ cloning, as well as developing nanites that can be introduced into the bloodstream to promote cellular health and regeneration."

"They can heal you from the inside?" Tim clarified.

"Something like that," Bruce confirmed.

"Well, now I see why _you're _so interested in it. That kind of tech would be useful for the night job."

"How long have you known me?" Bruce asked without looking up. Tim thought on it and deflated a bit. Realistically, Bruce would never consider injecting himself with something that could exercise control over his body. He took too much pride in his ability to control it himself. And they both were well aware of the issues around tech security. If someone ever took control of the nanites…

"It's all still prototypical anyway," Bruce went on. "Still in development. But it's important it gets developed in the right environment. Life 2.0 is fully philanthropic. Their CEO is something of a new-ager. But if the development ever fell into the wrong hands, the military applications of technology like this could be terrible."

"So you really took over the company to make sure you can keep an eye on their R&D? That's noble of you," Tim said.

Bruce didn't bother answering. He just continued plugging away at his computer problem. Tim took the opportunity to begin undoing his tie and shirt and made his way over to the cases on the wall that contained their real suits. As he slid the glass panel aside, the eyes of his domino masked seemed to bore into them from where it was displayed in the case. An overwhelming sense of pride always rolled over him as he reached out and took hold of the Robin costume. _His_ Robin costume. There were still days when he couldn't believe that this was his life.

Lost in a daydream, he didn't hear Bruce's question when the older man finally spoke up again. He just caught the tail end of it and realized that he had been speaking.

"What was that?" Tim asked, closing the case with the costume now in hand.

"I asked how the hearing went," Bruce called out. "Is Quinn showing progress?"

"Yeah, about that…" Tim trailed off. He took a few steps back toward the computer so he wouldn't have to shout. The sweat was beading up on his bare shoulders as he stalled putting the costume on. It really sucked in the cave during the summer.

"Quinn's getting released on parole," he said.

He could have anticipated the reaction. Bruce's fingers went still, distracted finally from whatever it was that he had been doing. With a stare that would have frozen vodka, he darted his eyes up at Tim and all but snarled the word, "What?"

Tim nodded. "Two weeks and she'll be out."

Bruce pushed away from the computer with a grimace on his face. He made for the rack of costumes himself, his own case containing a suit much larger and darker than Tim's.

"I take it you wouldn't have pushed for that?" Tim called after him, finally pulling his arms into the Robin suit.

"I sometimes wonder if those doctors are completely disconnected from reality," Bruce called back.

"You're one to talk," Tim mumbled, soft enough not to be heard.

Bruce went on. "They put so much effort into the care and treatment of their patients, but no thought into the consequences of letting them back on the street prematurely."

"You were the one who told me that Quinn was showing progress," Tim replied. "Isn't that what you said?"

"Progress is one thing," said Bruce, already snapping on the yellow utility belt around the black Kevlar of his outfit. He had this costume thing down to a science. Tim finished stripping off the lower layers of his suit and hurried to climb into the rest of his own nighttime ensemble, afraid if he lagged behind he might be left behind.

"You need more than just a little progress for release," he went on. "Too much can go wrong on the outside. Too many ways to revert."

Tim felt himself beginning to get a bit fed up with his mentor's response. "You weren't there, Bruce," he snapped, a little too testily. "You didn't see what she was like today."

Bruce stopped now, just short of the cowl, and glanced back over at the boy. Tim could see the gears turning in that very sharp mind of his.

"You voted for release," he said. It wasn't a question.

Tim shrugged. "Yeah. I did."

Bruce scowled turning back away from him. At some point Alfred had silently made his way down the stairs and Tim noticed him setting a pitcher of black coffee and two cups down on the computer console. Alfred could always be counted on for the necessities.

"I shouldn't have trusted you to go for me," he said.

The words felt like a knife between Tim's ribs. Shouldn't have _trusted_ him? If he'd proven anything over the years of their partnership, it was that he was trustworthy. That his opinion was always informed and his actions were well thought out. How could he really feel that Tim couldn't be _trusted_?

Bruce seemed to recognize the mistake in his wording a moment after he said it and tried to backpedal, but Tim lashed out without waiting for an apology. "It wasn't _Quinn_, Bruce. Not the Quinn we know. I know her as well as you do. Hell, probably _better_. Whenever _you're _dealing with the Joker, _I'm _dealing with Quinn. I've heard her lie. I've seen her cheat and steal. I've seen her hurt people. And I'm telling you, she was doing _none_ of that today. That woman was _not_ the Harley Quinn we know. She was a person who recognized her mistakes, _clearly_, I might add. Cogently. A person who needed a chance to let the healing begin." Tim threw his hands up. "I mean, if you don't want to let them even _try_ to reform, then why are we wasting the time it takes to lock them up?"

Bruce looked like he wanted to start gunning right back but he held his tongue, perhaps realizing that this was only an emotional outburst due to the insult he'd unintentionally thrown Tim's way. But before he could find his words, Alfred spoke up.

"If I may, Master Bruce?" he said. "Considering the conversation we were having just this morning…"

"Don't, Alfred," Bruce warned him, but the old butler just trudged on.

"…where you had told me how proud you were of Master Tim's accomplishments as of late, and where you said you were humbled by the man that he had become. And in your words, sir, that his 'spiritual strength and sense of moral character were the embodiment of everything you were trying to accomplish in the Batman.' I would suggest that maybe his judgment in the matter of Dr. Quinzel's rehabilitation isn't as flawed as your instinct would tell you, and that maybe you should consider his point of view."

Tim looked from Alfred to Bruce, and back, stunned and speechless. To go from such an insult to such a glorifying compliment…he was taken aback. Alfred could always be counted on for the necessities.

"_Thank you_, Alfred," Bruce gritted through clenched teeth.

"Any time, sir."

He stalked over to Tim, working palpably to calm himself and remain civil, to keep in mind the butler's advice. Tim stood as tall as he could, which was still a few inches below the older man, but just stared into him with all the confidence he could project.

"When Quinn gets out," he instructed, "you will have eyes on her like a hawk. This is your responsibility, Tim, so you make sure _nobody_ has to get hurt because of your decision. If she so much as blinks in the wrong direction, we bring her down immediately and turn her back in to Arkham. Do you understand?"

Tim gave him a quick nod. "That's fair," he said.

Bruce exhaled, releasing whatever was left of his temper, and worked to push his mind through into the details of the night. "Be ready in five," he said, disappearing back up into the house. Alfred followed after him, leaving Tim alone in the cave with the tray and a single, knowing smile.

Tim reached for one of the coffee cups and couldn't keep his own smile at bay as he drank. The "embodiment of everything he had been trying to accomplish with in the Batman." Wow. Just, wow.


	3. Surveillance

**The Last Laugh  
Chapter 3: Surveillance  
**By, Frank Hunter

Patrol that night remained fairly uneventful. Bruce insisted on the need to have eyes over every possible point of interest for a party looking to steal information from Wayne Enterprises or its new acquisition. This meant Wayne Tower, a number of warehouses and data storage facilities around the city, and even Life 2.0's previous headquarters in Old Gotham, where an extensive system of hard files and computer storage still hadn't made the move over to the new office. Bruce had gotten his hands on some sort of high tech, hi-res mini-cameras, Tim assumed from the company's development floor. The things were the size of a pea and picked up images at a resolution sharper than real life. There was no chance in hell that a _pigeon _would be nesting within 50 feet of any of these buildings without Batman and Robin being in the know. That, combined with Lucius's constant digital surveillance and protection protocols meant the company was pretty much on high alert against any form of theft imaginable.

But the rush to get surveillance in place turned into a fairly disappointing game of "hurry up and wait." In the subsequent two weeks there wasn't a peep from any of the cameras, programs, or alarms, and Tim was beginning to think that maybe the old man was starting to go a bit paranoid.

_Right,_ _starting. _He smirked as he sat, legs dangling, from an awning high up in the foggy Gotham night. Without any major corporate conspiracies going on, the pair of them had been resigned to keeping up their endless campaign against the city's petty criminals, pimps, car jackers, and street muggers. It was the side of the job that never seemed to make any headway. There was never any shortage of these people in the dark alleys of Gotham, and if they did manage to scare one off or bring the legal hammer down, three more sprung up to take his place. It was for that reason that Tim could really appreciate the so-called "super criminals" that reared their heads every so often. With them, there was a face on the campaign. You bring down Dent, you stop the Two-Face gang. You nail the Joker, the number of psychos in town with white makeup and big red smiles goes down to zero. At least that brought some satisfaction.

Speaking of big red smiles though…

Tim brought the binoculars up to his eyes and peered in through the window four stories down and across the way. The window was miniscule and scummy, but it looked in on the main living area of a tiny apartment that would fit entirely in Wayne Manor's reception room. It was the kind with yellowed linoleum on the floor and a creaky spring bedframe made of steel pipes. Every stereotype about living in the big city rolled into one place, a filing cabinet for a human being. And at that moment, a young blonde woman was stepping through the door.

The apartment was owned by a non-profit company that served as its own sort of independent halfway house for residents just out of Arkham. They'd helped place Harley Quinn in this place without needing much from her. They helped get her a job, too. A low-paying, low-responsibility gig at a SaveMart supermarket just over the bridge, in the outer boroughs. They were, arguably, the building blocks any good person could use to climb up and start developing some semblance of a normal life from.

Robin knew all of this because he'd been prying around in the company's secure database for the better part of an hour.

Sometimes the level of authoritarian rule-bending that went into the role of guardian angel pecked away at his conscience. He tried to remind himself, over and over, that all of this was for the greater good, to prevent terror, to save lives. A certain amount of flexibility was necessary for Batman to do what Batman needed to do. But there had to be limits to it.

Robin opened his fist and looked down at the little device he held there. One of the mini cameras, which he'd set aside from Bruce's stockpile. He'd intended to slip into the apartment before Quinn showed up and position the camera for a clear, inside view of the living room, but a thought had stopped him in his tracks. A vision that had crossed his mind. And the vision was of him and Bruce standing in the cave, staring at the computer monitor and watching a live camera feed. They'd done so much of that over these last two weeks, looking over the vague nothing of locked doors and sealed windows. But in his vision, what they were looking at was the secret, private life of a regretful woman as she did…absolutely nothing. As she slept and showered, as she dressed, ate meals, came, went, and lived her life, fully unaware that the whole thing was an open book to the Batman.

The notion of Bruce's cold eyes scanning over her in every moment of her private life didn't sit well with him. And he knew Bruce didn't take discretion with this kind of thing, particularly if someone like Quinn were involved. And he tried, in that moment, to tell himself that he was being ridiculous, and a hypocrite, and that he was taking unnecessary risks. So he raised the binoculars back to his eyes and scouted out the fire escape that was just outside the window. It would be easy enough to rectify his mistake and just get himself a good angle from the fire escape to stick the little eye, and it could watch endlessly from outside the window. But beyond the fire escape, the woman had now sat down on her tattered, raggedy sofa, picked up a remote control and turned on the television. She hadn't even unpacked her things. The way she sat, still and staring with the same slump in her shoulders as she'd carried the day Tim had seen her at her parole hearing. It steeled his resolve.

This was not a woman that was going to dress up in clown make-up and hold the town hostage. This wasn't a woman that was going to build bombs and slaughter innocents. This was a woman who was broken and heartsick and defeated, and who looked like she needed nothing more than for someone warm to put their arms around her and tell her that, in time, everything could be alright. He wished, for a moment, that he could help do that for her. But instead, he settled on the one thing he could do.

He slipped the unused camera back into his belt. There would be no video feed here, tonight.

Tim watched from the rooftop a little longer until it was grossly apparent that Quinn wasn't going to be doing anything else that night. Feeling proud of his convictions, he put the binoculars away, pulled the heavy weight of his grapple gun from his waist, and dove out into the night. Regardless of what Bruce thought, there were other avenues that would benefit more from his attention that night.


	4. Hardly Quinn

**The Last Laugh  
Chapter 4: Hardly Quinn  
**By, Frank Hunter

The next several nights flew by. Robin spent much of his time perched on that awning, watching and waiting to see if anything at all was going to happen. Occasionally Quinn would slip out of his sight, which had initially triggered his suspicions. But after moving onto the fire escape outside her window, he found that her kitchen (if you could call it that, it was just a corner with an oven and refrigerator) was not within line of sight from his usual nest. Most often when she would disappear, he found that she was just making for the bathroom or the kitchen.

Tim began to shorten these little vigils, simply telling Bruce that yes, he'd been watching, and yes, still nothing was happening.

"Have you had eyes on her during the day as well?" Bruce had asked him one night in the cave.

"I'm in school during the day!"

Tim had to keep up the ruse of being a student just as Bruce kept up the ruse of being a socialite. In truth, school had ceased to be challenging to him a long time ago. When he was accepted to university a year ahead of schedule, he thought things would get better, but the basic stuff was still far too basic. He continued going to keep up appearances. In his spare time though, he'd begun taking more advanced graduate courses online, which helped keep his intellect sharp.

"Where does she go during the day?"

"She got a job from the halfway house."

Bruce raised an eyebrow. "And you're certain she's _going _to it?"

Tim opened his mouth to retort, but wound up just shutting it up again. The idea had come to him, of course, that Quinn might be up to something in place of her day job, but he had checked the reports that were being filed by her parole officer, and everything seemed in order. That, coupled with the uneventful nights had convinced him that he hadn't needed to dig any deeper. But Quinn was nothing if not crafty. She may have been figuring out ways to slip through the cracks. Tim doubted it, but a little peek wouldn't go amiss.

On Friday, on his way back to the manor, he took a different bus route that brought him deeper into Gotham's outer boroughs. It was time-consuming and left him with too much time to think while he had little on his mind. He found himself staring out the window, eyes drawn up into the sky. Through the occasional breaks in the buildings, he could make out the familiar black and green elliptical shape of the LexCorp blimp floating in the sky over Gotham. He sighed. That thing represented yet another of Bruce's devoted and ultimately fruitless campaigns. A few years back, the executives at LexCorp had decided to shift the blimp back from Helium to the less stable Hydrogen as a cost-cutting measure for maintaining the dirigible. Bruce had publicly and vocally put pressure on LexCorp not to do that, citing numerous safety violations and the fact that a giant explosive bubble represented a tremendous safety hazard to the people of Gotham. But the LexCorp executives did what they did best: found all sorts of legal loopholes and maneuvers that got them the FAA permits and certifications they'd need to change over anyway. They lived for those kinds of back-handed deals, almost as much as they lived for the bottom line.

Long story short, the campaign had amounted to nothing, and yet somehow the blimp had not exploded into a fiery death ball from above. It was just one such example of Bruce needing to pick his battles with a little more scrutiny. He'd stress less if he only fought the fights that needed fighting. LexCorp, as it turned out, took safety aboard the blimp as a serious concern. The loss of the blimp would take a real cut into the company's profits, and they cared enough about _that_ to ensure that no harm came to it.

Tim pulled the cord for a stop as the bus rolled up to the address he'd been given and tried to shake the loose musings from his mind. Obsession aside, he'd promised Bruce he would do this, and so he would get it done.

He was relieved when he stepped off the bus and found that the address was indeed for a supermarket, and that it was not difficult to find. The store was a shlubby little establishment, to be sure. The quality of it was a match for the apartment they'd stuck Quinn in. Tim guessed that the more profitable, better-maintained businesses around the city were probably less willing to hire an ex-con. The halfway house worked with what they could get.

He went inside apprehensive, but when he immediately spotted the familiar blonde woman behind a cash register he realized he hadn't needed to worry at all. There she was, ringing up customers, doing everything she was supposed to be doing.

"Thanks," she said with a drag in her voice as she handed over her customer's change. She didn't even bother to look up into the guy's eyes. "Come again."

Tim was hit again by a pang of sympathy at the sight of it. Or was it at the sound? He hadn't heard her speak since the asylum, and her tone of voice, everything really, was still exactly the same. _Yeah_, he thought, _she's gotten past the Joker, but she's spent herself doing it._ When the Joker was involved, it was realistically a small price to pay, but the years of torment she had suffered with him, all the harm done had left her with next to nothing. He thought of what the maniac had done to Barbara, and to her father, Jim. To everything he touched. Nobody deserved that kind of treatment. And Harley…Harley had been exposed more than anyone.

He wasn't sure why he wanted to do it, but he decided to speak to her. A few long strides from the front door brought him to her register. He pulled a magazine from the rack beside it, just one of those celebrity gossip rags that held absolutely no sense of journalistic integrity or truth, and tossed it down onto her counter. "Hi," he offered.

"Hey," came the response. As before, she didn't look up. She just slowly put her hand over the magazine and slid it across her scanner. Her nails were unpainted, and short, as though she had been chewing at them.

"Nice day out?" offered Tim, floundering for conversation. He hadn't really thought this through.

"Ain't gettin' any nicer," Harley answered. "That'll be $3.79."

Tim pulled out his wallet and unfolded a couple of bills, passing them out on top of the magazine for her.

"Well," Tim considered. "They say you get out of it what you put into it. It's something to consider."

"They're full'a crap," she said, taking the bills and making her change. "No offense."

"Could always be worse," Tim said. "You could still be in prison."

Harley jerked as she put the coins back into his hand and looked up at him with dawning recognition in her eyes. Was she putting it together? Did she recognize him, or had she just been shaken by his knowing comment?

"Gotta appreciate the little things, right?" he asked rhetorically as he took his magazine and headed for the exit. "Later."

He could feel her watching him leave. It set his hair on edge. She'd known. Of course she'd known. The last time they had seen each other in the flesh…God, they couldn't have gotten closer to each other if they'd been lovers. Funny thing, the similarities between love and violence. How either sort of resembles the other. The idea of it made Tim shiver.

/\/\/\

_She was on top of him now, her legs straddling on either side. Holding his body in place. She was so incredibly _strong _for such a slight woman. It was the gymnastics, he thought absently. They kept her in incredible physical shape. Her legs unusually powerful_

_The shooting pain in his own leg was excruciating. Tim had only gotten a glimpse at the thing that had caught him up, right before Harley had come upon him like a storm. It was a bear trap, painted green with little red eyes on one end of it, like some sort of sick cartoon crocodile. It was eating into his leg, and it was going to take enormous effort and pain to pry that thing open and get his foot out. Both were things he was not going to be able to spare as long as Quinn was freely beating him._

"_How's that feel, Bird Boy!" she gloated from where she sat. Tim thrust against her, trying desperately to throw her off, to the side, off balance, anything. It was no good. She had him dead to rights, hanging on as though he were a mechanical bull. _Brass knuckles, _he'd thought as her fists kept driving themselves into his face. _That's why it feels like she's hitting so hard. She's got brass knuckles. _Tim thought he could feel the under-the-surface toothache pain of a fractured cheekbone. He needed to get away from this._

"_What's 'a matter?" she screamed between punches. "Cat got your tongue?" Through the haze and red fog of his own blood he could see her smiling in ecstasy, grinning from ear to ear through her whiteface make-up. Strands of her hair had come loose during the struggle, streaming down over her forehead. She was enjoying every minute of this._

_Tim reached out to her with one hand, making a show of trying to push against her. To shove her back. She brushed his arm aside with no effort whatsoever, but that didn't matter. It was just a distraction. His other hand was going for the gold: the retractable staff he kept in his belt, under his cape, behind his back. Just a few more inches and he would have it. He just needed to stay lucid for that long…_

"_Who am I kiddin'? Pretty soon, the little birdie'll be straight down the hatch!" He pressed on, his fingers just brushing against the steel of his staff. It was within reach._

"_What do you think Bats'll do when I drag your bloody corpse out for Mr. J? You think he'll lose it? You think he'll finally snap?!"_

_She reeled back a little too far for her next punch and Tim's arm finally made headway. He gripped the staff tightly and pulled it out, extending it as he did. In a fluid, flawless motion, he swung for the fences._

_Quinn hadn't been prepared and the staff slammed straight into her temple. She let out a little cry as the momentum of it knocked her over sideways, loosening her grip on Robin's torso and spilling her to the floor. Tim wasted absolutely no time. He couldn't afford to let her get her bearings. To let her get the upper hand again. He flipped over and lunged forward. A spike of pain lurched through the snared leg as he jostled it, but he forced himself to put it out of his mind. He couldn't allow himself to succumb. Not now._

_He grabbed onto one of the steel buckles strapped across Quinn's belly and used it for purchase to pull himself up on top of her, laying his body out and holding her down by the sheer force of his weight. Before she could fully shake off the hit, he took his staff and wedged it tightly beneath her jawbone, pressing at her trachea and cutting off the air supply to her brain._

_She realized what was happening an instant too late, scowling back and struggling to tighten her own grip on the staff to push it away. _Nuh uh,_ Tim thought. He climbed up a few inches higher to put the power of his shoulder behind the staff. Quinn's whole body was radiating heat, sweating from the exertion of the beating she'd been giving him. The full front of her leather suit was wet and slick with it, making it hard to keep on top of her, especially with her flailing and kicking. But Tim pressed his chest down to hers and pinned her as best he could._

_Winding back with his spare arm, he clenched up his fist and brought it down on the same temple he'd already cracked. The blow brought a rasped choke and a muffled grunt from Quinn. She doubled her effort to push the staff up off her neck. He hit her again._

_When he wound up the third time, he put everything he had behind the punch, connecting just below her eye, and finally it, coupled with the lack of air, put her down for the count. She let out one final little squeal and suddenly stopped fighting altogether, collapsing on the ground in a limp heap of tangled limbs and broken will._

_As soon as Tim was sure she'd gone down, he was right behind her. He gave up and let himself collapse too. _

_He fell on top of Quinn and, for a moment, let himself lay there, his cheek pressed to her chest, just recovering his strength. He was breathing hard, but could still feel the small up and down movement of the air filling her lungs as well. She was still alive. Thank God._

_As soon as he'd caught his breath he wasted no time. He was up, rolling off of Quinn and turning back to his injured leg. Now that the fight was over, the weariness had begun to set in and he swore he could feel the individual teeth of that damned thing digging into him. He needed to get it off, get a field dressing on, and tie up Harley before she had a chance to come to. He'd have to move quick, and this was going to suck._

_He just hoped Bruce was holding his own against her boss. He was pretty sure his usefulness tonight was just about reaching its limit…_

/\/\/\

He kicked himself over and over again as he sat on the bus once more, riding home into the darkening night. What had he been trying to accomplish by making contact? Why expose himself to her? It couldn't possibly do any good. It would only make her worry, and rightly so, that Robin was stalking her. And for a recovering psychopath, feeding into delusions of paranoia and persecution wouldn't aid in the recovery process.

When he arrived at the house, he let himself in without ringing for Alfred and stalked down to the basement alone. He was eager to get his actual night started, certain that this time he would have been left behind. He was just wondering where the Batman might be right about now when he found Bruce sitting, once again, in front of the computer. He was dressed from cowl to boots in the full batsuit and, once again, was dedicating his full attention to the security feeds the two of them had planted around town.

"Hm," Tim grunted.

"Something troubling you?"

"No, nothing," Tim said, stepping up behind Bruce. "I just thought I'd already seen the textbook example of 'depressing' today, but you proved me wrong."

Bruce didn't bother rising to the humor. He never did.

"How'd it go with Quinn?" he asked instead.

"Fine," Tim said. "Same as usual, no master plans in the works. Just a boring civilian life in action." He rested a hand on Bruce's chair. "How long have you been sitting here?"

"I wanted to take a look before I left," he answered. "Something's strange with this one."

Bruce pointed at the viewscreen in the top corner of his display. Tim recognized the feed. He'd put that camera in place himself, stuck to a light post on a street corner just down the block from the entrance to Life 2.0's old headquarters. The feed gave him a partial view of the door, the sidewalk, and the street, all of it slummy and dark, exemplary of just about everything in Old Gotham.

"A few minutes ago traffic on this street just stopped," Bruce went on.

"That's not so unusual," Tim said. "It's a back road in the middle of nowhere. It's empty a lot of the time."

"This early in the night?" Bruce asked. Fingers moving over the keyboard at hyper speed, he brought up a few additional feeds tiled across the screen. They were all the other cameras that had any visual on the streets, and all the rest showed fairly heavy streams of traffic flooding through rush hour in the Gotham night.

"I've checked the accident reports and police activity in the area, and I can't see any reason why traffic would have stopped here," Bruce said.

"You want to swing by first thing tonight?" Tim asked. "We can make sure everything's still dandy in about ten seconds."

He moved to go don his suit, but as he was about to turn away, something on the screen caught his eye. It wasn't much, little more than a couple of pixels toward the top of the viewscreen, but he leaned in over Bruce's shoulder for a closer look.

"What's that smudge up there, against the building?" he asked, pointing at the display.

Bruce isolated the image, drawing a box around it and zooming so that the anomaly Tim had seen got bigger. It took a moment to come back into focus, and when it did the resolution wasn't perfect, but the outline was visible and Tim squinted to make sense of it.

"It looks like a bird…" Bruce muttered, an intone creeping its way into his voice.

"Is it flying?" Tim asked. "It's not moving anywhere."

Bruce slammed his palms against the console and shoved his chair away from it. Tim, with reflexes sharp as a cat's, jumped away and missed getting knocked over by a millisecond. "What!?" he asked as Bruce immediately began stalking toward the car.

"The camera feed's been corrupted," Bruce called back to him. "It's frozen."

Tim's eyes shot back to the bird on the screen and he realized in a moment the implications here. "Oh damn," he said, and before the words were out of his mouth, he was moving. Looked like they were gonna finally see some action after all.


	5. Big Fish

**The Last Laugh  
Chapter 5: Big Fish  
**By, Frank Hunter

The Batmobile roared through the streets of Gotham, weaving in between traffic and down side roads and back alleys at the speed of thought. Tim sat in the passenger's seat with his hands clenched at the panels beside him. Not that Bruce's driving made him nervous. He knew any car that wound up in an altercation with the Batmobile would come out on the bottom of the ordeal. Mostly, it was just the nervousness that crept into him before any encounter. Preparing for a fight. It wasn't something you ever really got used to. It was especially hard when you couldn't be sure what you were walking into.

"How would someone go about freezing the feed?" he asked the Batman as his mentor stared single-mindedly into the road ahead. His stare was so deep it would put the Man of Steel to shame. "They'd need to find the cameras first to do that, right?"

"Cameras that size, it would be like a needle in a haystack," Bruce answered. "Unless someone already knew where they were."

"Is there any way to intercept the video data if they knew where to look?" Tim asked. "Track it down that way?"

"Transmission waves off something that small would be near invisible on most detectors," Bruce said matter-of-factly. Knowing that such detectors existed and what their capabilities were was just a part of his job. "It's possible some military models could be honed to identify EM signatures that low, but that's not the kind of tech that should be available to corporate spies or terrorists."

"So what, then? Mercs?"

"Be prepared for anything," Bruce answered.

It only took a few minutes at those speeds for the car to pull up beside the building in question. It was commercial in the smallest kind of way. A humble, white sign was nailed above the door, the words "Life 2.0" written on it in cursive, black lettering.

The pair sat in the car for a long moment, scoping the building in question. It was dark inside, but Batman and all his disciples knew better than anyone that darkness did not in any way ensure stillness. Inside the car, they were surrounded by plate glass and armored steel. If anyone were waiting to ambush them, it would be worth goading it on while they had their protection. Once they were out of the car they were sitting ducks, a serious predicament if there was somebody watching and waiting.

The Batman raised a scope to his eyes and surveyed the front of the building. "The front door is unlocked," he said. Robin squinted in that direction, trying to make out the details from this distance. As far as he could tell, it looked as though the doorknob and locking mechanism had been blown clear off. He could see blast marks and carbon scoring around the center of the door.

"They'll be expecting us this way," he said. "We should go around back, no?"

"No," Batman answered. "There are only two entrances to this building. The back door goes straight into the company's warehouse. It's too exposed. The hallway in front is better cover. But we make for the door quickly. Understood?"

"Yeah," Robin answered. Apparently Bruce shared the same concerns he did about ambush.

Without another word, the top to the car slid open and Batman had lunged forward from the driver's seat. Tim was close on his heels, and they moved like two shadows in the night, between the ambient glow of two overhead streetlights. Upon reaching the door, Bruce drew back his foot and kicked it in with a solid strike. It flew back on its hinges, crashing and swinging open, banging against the wall in back. Normally, the Batman preferred a much more subtle and silent approach, but Tim knew that with evidence of military involvement here, Bruce would have no choice but to adjust his formula. The kick was intended to set off any trip wires or traps that may have been set just on the inside of the door. As the pair made for the inside, Tim flipped on the NVG lenses inside his domino mask, a special green vision that would highlight electronics and heat signatures. Perfect for detecting hidden claymore mines or explosive booby traps waiting to be set off. But there were none that he could see.

A quick check to the wall beside the door showed Tim a security alarm that, at first glance, still seemed completely functional. But it was still showing green. It hadn't detected the first break-in, or Batman and Robin's subsequent intrusion. Whoever had busted into this place must have tampered with the system on the software side, or disconnected the alarm company's systems from this box entirely. He hadn't even bothered worrying about the physical alarm itself.

With mounting concern at the ongoing display of technology and skill, the duo pressed further and further inside the building. They checked offices and rooms as they went. Most of the building was just cubicle space, long since evacuated by employees moving to their new offices at Wayne Enterprises. Bruce tensed only a bit as they approached the record storage room, where he knew Life 2.0's documents and files were still being held, still not shifted over into his company's custody. But the records room was as vacant as everything else. When the two finally pushed back into the warehouse, the final unexplored space in the building, hugging the walls for what cover they could afford, the anxiety was eating Tim up. This was too quiet. The perp had obviously wanted them to know he had been there. He'd made that clear enough with the door. But there was no sign of ransacking or violence anywhere. If he was gone, what had he taken? If he was still here, what was he waiting for?

The warehouse, unlike the records room, had been emptied. It was now just a graveyard of empty shelves and aisles. Batman and Robin split to cover the room as thoroughly as possible, but still the NVGs showed Tim nothing out of the ordinary, and he met up with Bruce again at the entrance, defeated and confused.

He shut off the goggles and was about to say something about a wild goose chase when suddenly the voice reverberated out from behind him. From back in the room. It was deep and hoarse and mature, and tinged with the bemusement of a confident soldier in a seat of superiority. It was a voice Robin recognized and it filled him with dread.

"Long time, Batman," it called out.

Bruce and Tim spun, both of their hands instinctively shooting to their belts. Bruce would have grabbed hold of a batarang, his trusty go-to. Tim instead reached behind his back to grab hold of his staff. It was, he thought, possibly his only chance to survive this.

Standing atop one of the shelves, in a place Tim could say with utmost surety had been empty mere seconds before, was the man he knew owned the voice. His outfit wasn't military. It was armor, and custom. Made up entirely of deep blues and bright oranges. A bandolier flowed across his chest and all manner of pointed and projectile weapons strapped to his back and his belt. A headband streamed out behind him and a full mask covered his face, two-toned straight down the middle. But only the left side, the orange side, had an eyehole. Only that side of his face had an eye.

Looking down on them with his own staff in hand was perhaps the most dangerous mercenary in the world. Slade Wilson. Deathstroke.

"Slade," Batman growled at him. Tim stood still as a statue. Said nothing.

"What are you doing here?" Bruce went on, injecting as much venom as possible into his own voice.

"Calling you out," Deathstroke responded, casually. If he was intimidated in the slightest, he didn't show it. He turned his gaze on Robin. "How's it hangin', junior? You're looking well." Tim just tightened his grip on his staff, behind his back.

"What do you want?" Bruce asked.

"You should be flattered, Batman," Deathstroke answered, turning his attention back to Bruce. "You've become quite the big fish in Gotham's proverbial 'small pond. There's still an impressive economy of drug runners and arms dealer that move regularly through this city. And all of them make a habit of taking you into account. You'd be amazed at how many calls I get. How many people that are out there looking for a little bat insurance." He took a step forward, balanced on the lip of the shelf with apparent ease. "It was refreshing when someone could actually foot the bill."

"Don't expect me to believe you're just here for a fight," Bruce said to him.

"No, I'm running errands," Deathstroke said. "But we'd have crossed paths before too long. Better to get this out of the way now. On my terms."

"Who's your client?" Bruce asked him. "Who's so interested in this little company that they'd bring you into town to get at it?"

"Oh, come now," Deathstroke spat. "You don't really expect…"

Bruce didn't wait for him to answer. It was just a bait question, designed to get the merc to lower his guard. While Deathstroke was busy gloating, the Batman's hand was flashing up, the shuriken batarang held within rocketing toward the other man's good eye.

Against any normal opponent, the ploy might have given Bruce the initiative he needed to inflict a mortal wound. But this wasn't a normal opponent. Deathstroke's reflexes weren't human. As the batarang closed in on him, Slade's wrist twisted in a motion faster than was traceable. His staff spun like an airplane propeller and he knocked the projectile harmlessly away. As he did, he released something else from his own hand that had been palmed from God only knew where.

The object flew not toward Bruce, but straight at Tim. He didn't have time to take note of what it was. He just pulled his own staff out from behind his back, extending it to full length and, in a clumsy attempt to reconstruct Deathstroke's own defense, used the staff to bat the item from the air as though it were a baseball.

As metal clanged on metal, Tim felt a brief pang of relief from within. But something still wasn't right. The staff was too heavy on his follow-through, not balanced properly. It felt as though it were being weighted down. He twisted it to examine the end he had used as a deflector and his eyes went wide. Whatever it was Deathstroke had thrown at him, it had somehow adhered to the end of Tim's staff. And a little red light on it was now rapidly blinking.

"Crap!" he swore, and did the only thing he could do without putting too much thought into it. He threw the staff away.

As Batman's body propelled forward, having grappled up to the shelf to engage the mercenary, Robin's staff exploded in an expansive fireball of incendiary powder and flame. The concussion of it shattered the weapon into nothing and blasted Tim backward against the wall. He felt the heat of it scorch his cheek and the front of his suit, and felt the air knocked out of his lungs as he bounced off the hard surface and collapsed to the ground in a heap, dazed. The world spun around him, his ears ringing like church bells.

Tim shook his head and struggled to come to his senses, to get back into this fight. Bruce was going to need him before the end, and he'd need to bring his "A" game if he was going to stand a chance of competing at this level.

If only his vision weren't so mercilessly fuzzy.


	6. Deathstroke

**The Last Laugh  
Chapter 6: Deathstroke  
**By, Frank Hunter

Bruce saw Robin react to the explosion from the corner of his eye, but could do nothing to help. By the time the nature of Deathstroke's attack had become clear, it was already too late to stop it. Such, he remembered coldly, would be the whole experience of Deathstroke.

He needed to hope that Tim would handle himself. He had no spare mental capacity to devote to compassion now. Fighting Deathstroke was like playing a game of chess where your life hung in the balance, and your opponent was always several moves ahead. If you failed to play at the same level, then it would be over before it even began.

The grapple line was propelling him straight up onto the shelving unit, straight at him. But Slade would have been prepared for that. If Bruce reached the top, he had no doubt there would be a blade or an explosive or any other number of lethal implements waiting for him in some violent fashion he couldn't expect. So he did the only thing he could do. A split second early, he released his line.

Instead of mounting the top of the unit, the Batman's body flew low, in through one of the openings between shelves. He straightened his body, arms overhead, to make it easier for him to fly through unhindered, but still, there was no way to know what would be waiting for him on the other side. Whether Slade had been ready for that as well. At the last moment, before passing clean through, he reached out his hand and caught the lip of the shelf. The momentum loaned to him from the grapple line, along with the mass of his armored body, worked against the shelving unit, and a tinge of satisfaction passed through Bruce as he felt the fixture begin to tip over when the jolt of impact shot up his arm.

He held on as the unit fell downward, waited until his feet, jutting out the side, hit the floor a second before the rest of the unit. When they did, he propelled himself back out the way he'd come, fired a new line at the rafters in the ceiling, and got himself clear of the wreck before he could be hurt.

As the rest of the shelving unit came down, Bruce saw the incendiary device on top of it detonate. A proximity mine, he guessed. The surprise that would have been waiting had he blindly attacked first. Deathstroke himself sprung himself in a graceful, spinning motion onto the next unit before he could be caught in the blast, but the collapse wasn't done. The first bunch of shelves hit the next bunch in line, creating a sort of domino effect. Slade jumped once more to the side, steering away from the rest of the calamity.

Bruce perched on the rafters, reached into his belt, and threw another quick hand of three batarangs down, leading the mercenary to where gravity dictated he would land. And though his accuracy was spot on, the attack was still ineffective.

Having dropped his staff somewhere in the confusion, Deathstroke pulled a machete blade, sheathed from God knew where. He spun in mid-air, and by the time he landed, three quick, concentrated slashes had knocked the Batman's projectiles harmlessly away.

Bruce had only a moment to reach his hand back into his belt and palm one other small object before Slade retaliated, throwing the machete with all the muscle he could put behind it up into the rafters at Bruce. Bruce dropped straight down to avoid the blade. As he dropped, Deathstroke himself jumped off the top of shelves and disappeared into the network of corridors between them.

Having lost track of Slade, Bruce only knew that he did not want to land exactly where the merc would have seen him falling. That would mean death. Instead, he spread the folds of his cape out to help catch his fall, and used the inertia to glide across the room. When he finally dropped, he had nearly reached the opposite wall and there was nothing around him but darkness. Line of sight was broken.

Next move. What was the next move? Bruce forced himself to think like a mercenary. To think like Slade. What would he do?

If he lost track of the primary target, he'd move in to ensure the secondary target was really down. He'd go for Robin.

Bruce turned back and darted in the direction he knew he'd left Tim. _Toward_ Tim, though. Not _to_ him. Slade could equally likely be using the boy as a trap to lure Batman back into the open. A disgusting and yet incredibly effective strategy. He needn't have worried, though. By the time he reached the room's entrance and chanced a glance toward the wall, he found that Tim was no longer there. The boy must have made use of Batman's first attack and vanished into the dark. Good. So it was still the two of them against Slade. The two of them together stood a chance.

Bruce tucked back into the darkness, ducked down, and climbed into the lowest shelf, at his feet. There, he tucked his cape around himself and waited. Given enough of a lull, maybe Deathstroke could be prompted to make the first move.

He couldn't tell how long he waited. It felt like forever. Usually he wasn't the one being hunted in the dark, and it was a role reversal that made him very uncomfortable. He considered for a moment turning on the infrared vision tucked into his cowl, but dismissed the thought immediately. He might be able to spot Slade with it, but the electronic mechanism made a soft humming noise when it was engaged. In a silent room like this one, it would be like advertising his position with a neon sign.

His eyes darted around the dark warehouse, watching, tracking for any sign of movement. At first, there was nothing. But then finally he heard a small, repetitive sound. It was soft, muffled, as though it were trying to be concealed, but that didn't matter. They were footsteps. And they were getting closer.

As Bruce waited he saw the pair of boots responsible turn a corner and move past him at decent speed. They were black, and he caught a brief glimpse of the red tights that were tucked into them too. That wasn't Slade. It was Tim.

Right behind him came another pair of boots. This pair moved at the same speed but with absolutely no audible sound. Bruce clenched his teeth. _That_ was Slade. In a matter of seconds he'd have closed the distance between him and Robin, and anything he planned to do to the boy in close quarters would be lethal.

Batman didn't hesitate. He rolled out of the shelving unit behind Deathstroke, raised his grapple gun, and fired the claw directly at the mercenary's calf. It was all too quick and too close for Deathstroke to respond. The hook caught him up and he spilled over, collapsing to the floor. The noise warned Robin, who turned around with fists in the air, looking ready for a fight. And the grapple gun began to reel, pulling Slade back the way he'd come.

That part, unfortunately, was not instantaneous, and as soon as Deathstroke realized what had happened, he whipped around, spotted Batman, and angled a katana, the weapon he'd intended for Tim, to stab straight into Bruce once the claw had retracted.

The Batman didn't wait for that to happen. He'd known to expect the attack and instead of engaging Deathstroke, he chose to abandon the weapon and roll back under the shelving unit once more. But, before he did, right before Deathstroke was on top of him with that deadly blade, he closed his eyes, held his breath, and took the small object he'd palmed from his belt and smashed it into the ground.

Upon impact, concentrated tear gas exploded from the tiny canister, dispersing in the air for a few feet around the explosion. Bruce kept rolling and didn't stop until he came out the other side of the shelving unit. There, he pushed to his feet and shot a glance back at where he'd come from.

Slade had gotten hit with the gas head on and grunted in what Bruce supposed was pain. And though he'd also found his footing just as the whole thing had happened, he also made his first mistake of the night. In order to get away from the gas, he'd taken a hasty step backward. For the first time, he acted on uncalculated instinct. That made him predictable, and that's what they'd needed.

Tim was there, right behind him as soon as he darted backward. He punched the merc in the back, and Slade angled up, shouting with another cry of pain. When Robin pulled his hand back, Bruce thought he spotted blood, and the shiny silhouette of the boy's own shuriken palmed there to do extra damage.

Slade swung his sword backward at Robin, but Tim was a martial artist. In a stand-up fight like this, particularly where he had gotten the advantage of initiative, he could hold his own. He dodged Deathstroke's counterattack and gave Slade a knee to the gut and an additional fist to the chin. Still reeling from the tear gas, he was not on his A game right then.

Batman pressed the advantage. At Robin's first break, he dove back through the shelving, hands first. He grabbed Slade and shoved the man backwards, slamming first his body into a set of shelves, and then adjusting his grip and slamming his face into the lip of one of the steel fixtures. Deathstroke gave him a better-aimed counterattack than he'd offered the boy, one that Bruce caught on his gauntlet. He connected another armored fist to Slade's head in retaliation.

But Deathstroke was nothing if not resilient. His power, stemmed from some black-list redacted military experiment, was superhuman. It meant that he healed quickly, and by the next attack, he might as well have been completely fresh again.

Robin aimed a forceful kick at the mercenary's knee joint. It was the kind of kick designed to break bones, and if he'd connected, it might have been the kind of injury to put Slade down for the fight. But he didn't. Deathstroke saw it coming and shifted his leg out of the way. Bruce just had time to notice that Slade's leg still had his own claw and cord attached to it before Slade shot his shin out in such a way that wrapped the loose cord around Tim's kick.

The rope tightened and Deathstroke, with overbearing strength, pulled his own leg backward, throwing Tim off balance, onto the floor, and straight into Bruce's boots. Though it wasn't powerful enough to barrel the Dark Knight over, it was enough to force him to catch his balance, and the distraction was enough for Deathstroke to exploit it. He threw an elbow at Batman, which connected, loosening his grip. He then swiped his sword downward, cutting the cord around his ankle, and sprung backward, clearing his way out of the exchange and allowing him to orient himself once again.

"Impressive," Slade said, with no degree of sarcasm. He waited, watching as Tim got to his feet and struggled free of the line himself, and as he and Batman took up a formation side-by-side, preparing to challenge him in a real fight.

It was then, before they were able to clash again, that the first sound of a siren came from outside.

Deathstroke's eye shot over his shoulder for just an instant as he heard the sound. "Really?" he asked as incredulity seeped into his voice. "The police?"

"I might have made a quick call," Tim confessed.

The three held their ground, no one chancing a move. As more sirens added to the din outside, it became clear that the game here had changed.

"I didn't come here for the police, Batman," Deathstroke said. "I came here for you. It would have been better to get this out of the way now."

Bruce scowled at him from under the mask. "For the last time, Slade," he said. "Tell me who you're working for."

But Deathstroke utterly ignored the command. "Now we'll need to play this game again," he said. "And next time is for keeps. You won't get another warning from me beforehand."

In the blink of an eye, Slade had cast his free hand downward, and something that looked like a smoke pellet went off, clouding Bruce's vision. He was gonna run. Bruce quickly cycled on his infrared. If he could spot Deathstroke in the cloud of smoke he might be able to get a tracker on him, follow him back to his client. But as soon as the goggles kicked on, he realized it would be impossible.

The display screen before his eyes erupted into little more than bursts of red and static feedback. A quick cycle to the night vision option showed the same problem with green instead of red. Bruce sighed and shut the whole thing down. It was useless.

Robin had apparently tried the same thing, because Bruce heard him swear from where he'd known the boy had been standing. "Chaff?" Tim asked.

"Yeah," Bruce answered. Reflective magnetic strips of metallic fiber. Deathstroke must have inserted them into his smoke bomb. Not only would the smoke keep the naked eye from seeing anything, but the chaff would wreak havoc on any sort of light amplification or augmentation system used while they were still floating around in the air. In the time they'd wasted attempting to use the goggles, Bruce knew that Slade would already be gone.

"We shouldn't be here when the cops get in," he said to Tim. "Back door. Let's go."

"Right," Tim answered.

The two moved out of the cloud of smoke in the direction of the back door they'd avoided on the way in. When they reached it they found it was left open, either in Slade's haste to leave or just as a condescending final reminder that he had so easily gotten away from them. Bruce didn't know which. He didn't really care.

The door let out on an alley, and the pair made their way quickly out of the alley and onto the street. Bruce had the security measures disarming and the door to the Batmobile opened by the time they reached it. This was down to a practiced science, one they had undertaken hundreds if not thousands of times before. It was only a matter of seconds before they were in the car and the car was blasting down the street, away from the oncoming sirens of the GCPD.

Robin, who had watched the Life 2.0 building disappear through the back window, turned and slumped in his seat when it fell out of sight.

"I blew it, didn't I?" he asked.

Bruce took a breath and reminded himself of how the fight had started, with Deathstroke getting the drop on them and Tim taking an explosion at close range. A glance at Tim's face showed only a little bit of scorching and singed hair. No serious burns or injuries. He'd been incredibly lucky to escape with that little to show for it.

"We shouldn't be fighting Slade on his own terms," Bruce settled to say. "It was the smart move to get away from there."

"Is it what Batman would have done?"

Bruce didn't answer. He knew he'd struck an emotional chord with the boy the day Quinn was paroled. Tim had been trying to hold himself to a higher standard ever since. He didn't realize that that's not what Bruce had meant. He didn't want Tim trying to be the man that Bruce would have wanted him to be.

"What do you think he was even looking for, anyway?" Robin said into the lingering silence.

"I don't know," Bruce responded.

"Do you think he got it?"

"I don't know."

Bruce needed time to simmer. To figure out his next move. He guessed that publicly the break-in would be enough to justify Bruce Wayne requesting an expedited move for the rest of the equipment to the safety of Wayne Tower. But if Deathstroke had already made off with some prize, or if he'd really just been there to call Batman into a fight, then it would make no difference. They still didn't know what his endgame was.

A beeping noise rose from the car's onboard computer and shook him out of his contemplation. The screen on the dash had a little flashing red box on it. Bruce squinted down to read it.

It said "Foreign Object Detected."

"What the hell does that mean?" Tim asked apprehensively. As he did, the box changed over from the simple warning to something more ominous: a countdown timer. It started at "0:05." Five seconds.

The realization hit Bruce as the "5" switched to a "4." The empty building. The time it had taken for Deathstroke to reveal himself. Slade had spent the time they'd used searching the office to booby trap the car.

There was no time for anything. The bomb must have had some kind of shielding to remain undetected this long. With only seconds before detonation, there was nothing he could do to preserve the vehicle. A fast flurry of fingers over the touchscreen initiated the ejection program. He'd launch the seats away.

The panel accepted the command as the timer counted down to a "3" and then a "2." The expected sound and gust of wind came as the car jettisoned the plate glass window that curved up along its frame. But something was wrong. Only the window on Robin's side had jettisoned. The driver's side was still intact.

His gloved hand punched the ejection button once more. Twice. But nothing else happened. The clock struck "1."

"Bruce?!" Tim asked, nervously. But Bruce had no answer to give him. Deathstroke must have also sabotaged the driver's side defense mechanism.

The passenger seat alone shot up out of the car as the clock struck "0," and Tim screamed in rejection as he was propelled into the sky. An instant later, the world below him erupted into a sea of orange heat and flame, and the concussion wave echoed out into the night.


	7. High Profile

**The Last Laugh  
Chapter 7: High Profile  
**By, Frank Hunter

"No!" Tim screamed as the Batmobile exploded below him. "No! No! No!"

He pulled at the seatbelt that held him into the ejection pod, only vaguely aware that if he actually succeeded in tearing himself free, that he would plummet down into the fiery mess himself. He could only look on in horror as the car flipped and barrel rolled down the street, sliding to a stop upside-down in the middle of an intersection. Traffic squealed to a halt around the wreck. In a few seconds there would be people all around it, and there wasn't a damn thing Tim could do about that.

As gravity began to take hold of Tim's seat, a parachute was deployed from behind the headrest, and Robin drifted down onto one of the low rooftops of Old Gotham. When he was resting on solid ground again and the chute drifted out behind him, he finally collected the ware withal he needed to get the belt open and get to his feet. He surveyed the scene below him.

There were people looking in on the car now. One particularly concerned citizen was already batting at the flames with a blanket, a touching display of human compassion. But it wouldn't do a damn thing for Bruce if he was still inside.

Tim traced his eyes back over the stretch of the Batmobile's slide, reconstructing the scene as Bruce had taught him to do over and over when trying to assess a situation or course of action. About fifty yards back he could see the dark stain of the explosion on the blacktop surface. That was where the bomb went off. A little ways before that, his window was lying on the street. That was where Bruce had ejected him. And between those two landmarks there was the smoldering husk of something black and smoking that looked as though it had flown from the car and smashed into a nearby streetlight.

"Oh God," Tim said. With all the attention, for the moment, on the car, he spread his cape and glided from the roof unseen, down to the street. The thing on the curb, with silver scrapes and dings all over it and a ragged, tattered black rag sprawled out behind. That was what was left of the Batman. He must have tried jumping through the passenger window just as the car detonated.

Tim was at his side in an instant. He rolled Bruce over onto his back. His face was showing signs of small second-degree burns. He looked as though he'd twisted and rolled awkwardly when he hit the road, before sliding to a painful stop against the lamppost. He was awake, but not lucid.

The radio on Tim's wrist was activated and at his mouth in another heartbeat, tuned to their standard emergency frequency. "Alfred!?" Tim shouted. "Alfred, help!"

Feedback whooshed back at him for a moment before the familiar, paternal voice picked up at the other end. "Master Tim? What is the matter?"

"Send the Wing, Alfred. We need pick-up here, now," Tim rambled. "Bruce is down."

When he had confirmation that Bruce's jet was on the way, he breathed a little easier. But for safety's sake, he felt a need to get off the street. He grabbed Bruce under the shoulders and dragged him backward, into an alley to wait for their ride. He protested with little more than a dazed grunt, but Tim pressed through it. Bruce would have done the same to him.

While they sat and waited, more than a few people wandered down the street, following the trail of wreckage themselves. Tim pulled the two of them behind a dumpster to get out of sight. When he looked down at Bruce, he noticed that his mentor was absently poking at a panel on his wrist. Tim had a moment of confusion before remembering what that was. Emergency controls for the Batmobile. Bruce's eyes were closed. He was disoriented and in shock, and still his stubborn training and forged instinct had him working to remotely blow out the computers and uplinks in the car, making sure it couldn't be used to trace anything back to the cave when it was impounded.

Tim just shook his head and waited.

It was a matter of minutes before the jet was overhead, and Tim was able to grapple the two of them into its hold. It was not the lowest-profile way to travel, but if Deathstroke had still been tracking them, and now Tim thought there was a strong chance he had been, it also wouldn't be an easy vehicle to follow. Just to play it safe, Tim set the Wing on a couple of decoy approaches, swooping out of the boundaries of Gotham City entirely before coming in for a landing at the cave.

Inside, Alfred was waiting with a stretcher and all sorts of medical implements, his training as a field medic kicking in as it always did in an emergency. Bruce was pulled out from the hangar and into the cave's infirmary, and Alfred was a flurry of activity.

"Two of his ribs are broken," Alfred said as he got to the bruises and injuries around his chest.

"Can I help?" Tim asked. "What can I do?"

"Hand me the suture, on your right there, and then step back please."

Tim did as he was told, watching and waiting until Alfred had finished his work. When he was done, Bruce wound up looking half like a mummy. He had so many ointments and bandages on him, and even more bruises which weren't covered, that he barely resembled a man at all anymore.

Alfred asked what had happened, and Tim filled him in on their encounter with Deathstroke and the destruction of the car. The old butler listened to it all with an ambient level of concern. He cared so much for Bruce, and though he worked hard to conceal his actual feelings on the subject of Batman and vigilantism, when situations like these came up, Tim knew Alfred held himself responsible. Responsible for not setting Bruce on a straighter path. Responsible for not being able to care for him more aptly. But at least the heart monitor that sat beside the cot, beeping its regular beep, told them that although Bruce was unconscious, he was stable.

When the story was done, Alfred didn't have much to say. Wouldn't, Tim guessed, until Bruce was awake again. By then he was sure to have a tirade prepared. But until then, the old man just sat in the infirmary with him, doing his best to will Bruce back to health.

When the action had settled and there was nothing left but the "beep beep beep" of the heart monitor, Tim knew he couldn't stay there any longer. The tension was poised to drive him nuts. He needed fresh air, and to clear his head. The best thing for it would be to go out on patrol. There was nothing else he could do for Bruce tonight, and no good would come from staying here with him.

"If you must," Alfred conceded, when Tim told him. "But do be careful, Master Tim. If the mercenary is still out there, it may not be safe for you."

"I'll keep my head down, Alfred. Thanks," Tim told him. He requisitioned a motorcycle, and was off, back into the city.

/\/\/\

As Robin swung through the night, he tried not to admit to feelings of guilt over the explosion and Bruce's subsequent injury. _He_ was the one who had put pressure on Slade and Bruce. He was the one who'd called the cops. If they hadn't had to flee the scene so quickly, maybe Bruce would have run a more thorough check on the car. Maybe they'd have actually _caught_ Deathstroke and gotten him off the street already. Maybe they'd have gotten the name of whoever it was targeting Bruce's company.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. They'd never know. Maybe they'd both be dead. Tim knew that blaming himself for how things went wouldn't make things go any better. But in that moment, there was nothing else for him to do.

The routine of the last few weeks unconsciously brought him to the familiar crappy neighborhood he was getting to know too well. He moved to his perch up on the balcony without thinking much about it, and sat where he had been sitting almost every night in recent memory. Across the way, the window was open out into the cool summer air and Tim could see into the apartment that he knew he was supposed to be monitoring. Compared to mercenaries, corporate spying, and exploding cars, this seemed so much simpler.

But something was wrong.

The lights in the apartment were off, the living room lit only by the shifting glow from an active television, the screen of which Tim couldn't see. But the glow shone over the sofa where Harley Quinn usually sat, and she wasn't sitting there now. Tim lifted his scope to his eyes to get a clearer look at the room, and came away certain now that it was empty.

He swore. Now he'd need to look for her. Now he'd need to figure out where she was going. And with his luck, she'd be down an alley somewhere right now, cutting a deal with Killer Croc to harvest and sell orphans' kidneys on the black market. What joy.

He tucked his scope away and glided down onto the fire escape. If the place was empty, he might be able to tuck inside, find some clue as to where she went. Maybe it was just to the store for groceries. Yeah, the store. At 12:27AM. That was likely.

As he peered into the room from the window, the television became audible and visible and Tim grew distracted by the broadcast. It was tuned to one of the broadcast news shows, and the image on the screen was a familiar one: a flaming car upturned in an intersection.

"…reports coming in that the vehicle actually belonged to the Batman," the reporter dictated, followed by the report of an eyewitness.

"Yeah, I was just drivin' home, and then suddenly like, Wham! The car in front of me crashes and this big like fireball goes zoomin' by."

The reporter went on. "The cause of the explosion is not yet known, nor are the whereabouts of the vehicle's occupants. When police arrived on the scene, the car was vacant."

Tim sighed at the recount of the event, and was just working himself up to climbing into the apartment when another voice rang out from the other side of the room, from the tucked-away kitchen corner.

"They started runnin' this crap about two hours ago," she said, and it made Tim jump. He shot to the other side of the fire escape and reached for his staff, which he had replaced in the cave. There in the kitchen, leaning against the wall and holding an unlit cigarette, was Quinn.

"Wasn't sure you'd show up after all that," she said, lighting the end of the cigarette and taking a drag.

"You've seen me outside?" Tim asked.

"Thought I heard somethin' out there a couple'a times," Quinn answered. "Chalked it up to paranoia mostly. But then you showed up at the store today…" She trailed off.

"Tipped you off," Tim finished. He could barely believe that had been today. So much had happened since then.

"Somethin' like that. Sounds like you're fryin' bigger fish these days, though."

Tim didn't say anything.

"Did they finally nail the Bat?" she asked callously. Tim's heart flipped at the statement. Just the general apathy of it, given his own feelings of guilt about Bruce's condition, twisted in him like a knife.

"Nah, course they didn't," Quinn went on. "When he finally goes out, it ain't gonna be somethin' stupid like a car bomb." She scoffed. "A car bomb for the Bat?"

There was something in her tone that caught Tim's interest. The facetiousness in that last was deeper than it seemed. It was something more positive. Something almost closer to…respect?

"That's not how you would do it?" Tim asked, injecting the question with a bit of sarcasm. He tried to relax himself and let go of the staff. He was still fairly confident that she wouldn't be trying anything here.

"C'mon, Bird Boy. How many times did J come after you? Death traps. Hostages. No-win situations. That's how we did things."

"He never got us either," Tim replied.

"He got one'a ya," Quinn said.

The knife twisted a bit again. Tim had never really known Jason Todd, his predecessor. But he knew that the Joker was the reason that the Robin suit was now _Tim's_ instead of Jason's.

"You're not the Joker, though," Tim offered.

"That's for damn sure," Quinn said, taking another long puff. "Is that why you're nesting on my window these days?" She grinned. "Think I'm gonna come after ya again?"

"Like you said," Tim answered. "It wouldn't be the first time."

"Yeah, well, dream on, Bird Boy. I'm turnin' over a new leaf. You ain't gonna turn my head that easy anymore. I'm rehabilitatin'."

"C'mon, Harley. You want me to just accept that you're satisfied pulling nine-to-five at a supermarket? After everything you've done?"

"Satisfied?" Quinn actually laughed at the word. "Do you even know who I _was_ before I was Harley Quinn? I was a trained psychoanalyst. I've got residencies completed at Blackgate Prison _and_ Arkham Asylum." She pushed off the wall and actually walked over to the window to stand face to face with Tim, who flinched, but did not make for his staff again. Quinn shoved the window open wider so she could look up at him and see him clearly.

"I was a certified mental health professional. A doctor with ten years of a college education. But I don't get to do that no more. Because when you do what I did, they take those certificates away. So now, I'm not certified for jack. Nobody'll hire me for nothin'. They definitely ain't givin' me no job with the word 'psycho' in the title. But I cared enough about _helpin'_ people heal to spend ten years of my life trainin' to do it. That's longer than I spent runnin' around with the clown. So you wanna know if I'm _satisfied_ baggin' groceries?"

"I guess not," Tim confessed, a little meekly.

"No. But I'm done with the runnin' and gunnin'," she finished. "I'll figure out how to get back on the horse when I can. But in the meantime, why don't you come back in half an hour? They run 'Wheel of Fortune' at 1:00 and 1:30. You can watch me watch it. That'll be fun for both of us."

With that, Quinn slammed down the window and stalked over to her sofa, sitting down and pointedly staring ahead at the TV. Tim swallowed and stood there for a minute longer, not sure how to accept what had just happened. His instinct was to apologize for offending her, but he had to remind himself that given their background that was somewhat ridiculous. He settled eventually just to go, leaving her there to watch him leave from the corner of her eye.


End file.
